Security

I am amazed - it happens so often. A laptop gets stolen, complete with the personal information from thousands of people. Look at this article from the Chicago Tribune: "A Boeing Co. employee's laptop computer that contained Social Security numbers and other personal information for 161,000 current and former workers was stolen, the company said Friday. " And then they go on to say "had no evidence that any of the personnel information ... was accessed or misused." Wonderful. Because they don't know about it, it didn't happen!

But really - haven't these IT managers ever though of using Notes clients with local encryption turned on? That is a pretty watertight solution, and no casual thief is likely to have the tool to crack Notes security. If you use "in placed editing" in the Notes client, Notes will delete temp files, preserving your security (no comments on recovering deleted temp files).

What it really needs is a comprehensive look at the security of information traveling around on laptops, and a look at tools like Notes that transparently encrypt your data. However, what we have is a gaping hole with in organizational security. Remember, it's always you an me who pay the price. If an ID thief gets our data, we are the one who spend months sorting the problem out.